This invention relates to new and useful improvements in a dolly block.
Modern day automobiles are being produced with much thinner sheet metal body parts than they were in the past. Such thinner body parts comprise, for example, door skins, quarter panels, hoods, roofs, etc. These thin sheet metal parts require considerable finesse when being straightened or smoothed by pick hammer blows in combination with an anvil or dolly block. That is, unless the dolly block can form a desired anvil surface or in other words can properly distribute hammer forces, including for cold shrinking, a smooth, even skin surface is difficult or impossible to produce.
Prior dolly blocks have been proposed for use as anvils. The older types of blocks were constructed from metal, including the anvil surface thereof. Such blocks are shown in U.S. Pat. Nos. 1,506,578, 2,340,950, 2,518,073, and 2,786,375. These metal anvil surfaces will not perform satisfactorily on thin type metal auto body parts because the necessary finesse of impact energy, such as straightening, smoothing, cold shrinking, etc., cannot be achieved. A rubber covered dolly block has been proposed to prevent marring of thin gauge metal door skins and also to be more comfortable and convenient to use than iron dollys. Such a dolly block is shown by U.S. Pat. No. 4,677,840. This block has a metallic core of embedded cast iron which is shaped generally to the external configuration of the overall dolly block. The covering of rubber on the top surface of the core as well as on the sides and ends is equal in thickness but the bottom covering is twice as thick as on the rest of the block. One disadvantage of this prior block is that the rubber covering around the cast iron core does not have a variety of thicknesses to accomplish the necessary finesse of straightening and smoothing thin sheet metal parts such as door skins. Another disadvantage of this prior tool is that the inherent qualities of rubber limit the useful life of the block since rubber disintegrates after prolonged hard usage. Further, no provision is made to allow the tool to be used for cold shrinking.